August 2014

After our crazy summer, the Dismuke house is ready for some routine with school starting, sorta.  the girls are ready to be back with their friends at school but this momma is definitely not ready for her baby to go to Kindergarten!  Oh my the happy tears are going to be flowing for a while now!  But before Ingram can start school, he has to have one last "Hoorah!!" with his buddies Nolan and Jake at Chick Fil A of course!  These boys were nutty and Madison even got to tag-a-long and see how crazy these littles are!  Needless to say, we had a hard time getting her away from the "mom table" because she just loved listening to our conversations.  Imagine that, a 12-year old girl wanting to sit and listen and talk!

Triple Trouble!  Going To Miss Not Seeing These Three Together On A Daily Basis!

After the girls's first day of school, we headed off to TCBY to celebrate, but during the day, Ingram had the house all to himself since he wasn't starting school for another week!  We played games and made Lego creations, and Ingram even "practiced" snuggling in his rest mat for school.

It's The First Day Of School So I Was Thinking I Would Take A Picture!
Apparently 6:30 AM Is Too Early For Smiles!
What In The World Was I Thinking???

And Apparently So Is 8:30AM!!

But Not At 11AM With This Little Man!

I Finally Had Them Smiling, But Ingram Decided His Spoon Needed To Be In The Picture!

That's More Like It!!!

G-Mommy also came in town to take over the house for the rest of the week because I headed to Vancouver, Canada to attend a conference on Family Centered Care for St. Jude with some other members of the Family Advisory Council.  When Craig dropped me off at the airport, I cried my eyes out because I hadn't left them like this...ever!  I've gone an overnight trip I think twice without them, but this was 5 super long days with no option of getting home in an hour; it took one flight delay, two meals, and three airports before I was even in the right city as my hotel.  And yes, I cried at the hotel too because Craig had flowers waiting for me because he knew how hard going away was going to be on me.  While I was gone for the week, G-Mommy handled everything at home and spoiled Ingram rotten of course, but the girls were at school so what else were they supposed to do??  The girls made it through their first week of school and Daddy survived too so it was all worth it!  The conference itself was amazing and we were able to take ideas from other hospitals who cater to Family Centered Care and also able to give things that St. Jude does that they were interested in.  Even though being in classes from 8-5 was hard every day, seeing how important FCC is to others and to SJ is very energizing!  But then again, so was coming up the terminal seeing my people waiting with the biggest smiles ever!!

Ingram Getting Spoiled By G-Mommy After The Girls Went To School!
She Even Let Him Dress Himself So We'll Just Leave It At That!

First Attempt At FaceTime Was Successful...Except Lindsey Wasn't Home!

I Finally Caught Up With Lindsey On My Second Day!

More Spoiling By G-Mommy...This Time He Chose Red Robin For His Lunch!

And This Was My Lunch...Running Along The Vancouver Harbor!

Finally On The Last Day, I Got To See Them All Together!

It was so good to be back home and see what all kind of trouble happened while I was away.  The girls finished their first week of school and Ingram played every day with G-Mommy until the girls got home.

After A Week Of Not Checking The Mailbox (While I Was Out Of Town), Ingram Got His
"Teacher" Card From Mrs. Taylor While He Was Trying On His New Uniform!

I'm Thinking He's Just A Little Bit Excited About Seeing His Kindergarten Classroom!

Poor Mrs. Taylor...She Has No Idea What's In Store!

"Hey Mom!  Take My First Day Of Real School Picture!"

Like I Said Earlier, She Has No Idea What She's In For With Him!

Saying Bye Before I Start To Cry...And Yes, I Most Certainly Did!

Madison Was Super Excited She Got The First Hug!

And The Second First Day Of School Ice Cream!

Ingram Working On His "Pluses" For Math On His Own.  He Does This Almost Daily So He's  Ready For A Test.
And No, He's Never Had A Test In Math Or Any Other Subject.
He Just Really Likes Math...Just Like His Daddy!

Since Ingram's only in Kindergarten, we still have a lot of time to play instead of do homework.  This was a super fun weekend with fishing, swimming, and ice bucket challenges!  I Think we had soccer too, but these were definitely the highlights!

Swimming With Preschool Buddies After The Ice Bucket Challenge!

Daddy And Mr. Daniel Took The Kids Fishing, Or Really I Guess Mr. Daniel Took His Girls Edie, Sloane,
And Aubrey Fishing And Somehow Daddy, Lindsey, And Ingram Wound Up There Too! And No,
Craig Did Not Touch The Fish Or The Bait Or Anything Icky!

Fishing Got Boring!

Another Ice Bucket Challenge!  Ingram Called Out "Grey And Damiel And Their Dads!"  It Led To A 4-Family
Cookout And Pool Party Where The Kids Outnumbered The Adults 12 to 8 But It Seemed More
Like 50-1 With The Volume Level!

Ingram On Damiel's Shoulders

And Now Madison's Shoulders!

Like Father...

Like Son!

Now we all know school is fun, but Kindergarten is super fun especially when you're learning how to spell all of your colors...and you get to dress up in those colors every day for two weeks instead of wearing your school uniform!

Ingram Won The "Best Luncher" Award For The Best Behavior At Lunch!
Don't Worry, It Was Only 30 Minutes In The Lunchroom!
This Was Also Blue Day!

Yellow Day At Kindergarten!

Green Day...Yep, Best Green Shirt EVER!!!

He ROARED And Tried To Scare Us For Days With His Little Lion!

Blue Day For Our Buddy Landan.  It's One Of The Realities Of Childhood Cancer.
Today Was Landan's Two Year Angelversary And We, Along With Tons Of Other Friends And Family,
 Honored Landan And His Family By Wearing His Favorite Color...Blue.

"What Was Your Favorite Thing At School Today Ingram?"
"Science...It Was Gross And Fun!"
Also Orange Day!

We made it through Ingram's first couple weeks at school and now it was time to hit the road for Lindsey's first travel soccer tournament to beautiful Birmingham Alabama!  It was a long drive there for sure, but for some reason the kids perked up at 10:30pm when we finally got to the hotel.  That "Be on the field by 7:30am" was very early the next morning!  The girls played 3 hard games in the heat and the rain and the humidity after the rain and won their division.  Ingram and Madison had a blast with all the other siblings and even got to go swimming all by himself since the players couldn't swim during the tournament.

Ingram Was The Only One Allowed In The Pool At The Soccer Tournament And He Was Super Happy!
He Thought This "Pose" Would Make A Really Good Picture.  I Guess We Can Bring It Up At His Wedding??

Ingram Photobombing The First Place Picture!

Instead of driving home after the tournament, we decided to make a little detour since it was Labor Day Weekend!  We had a very emotional month and needed some family time away from phones and sports and everything.  So off to Pickwick we went for one last day on the water...and it was a beautiful day indeed!

Perfection.  I Wish We Could Do This Every Day!

Ingram's Favorite Part Of Kneeboarding...Riding The Wake!

Lindsey Trying To Surf On The Kneeboard...It Didn't Last Long!

Lindsey Unexpectedly Catching Some Air On The Kneeboard!

Madison Getting Air On The Kneeboard!

And On The Wakeboard!

And To Think Both Lindsey And Ingram Used To Be Scared To Tube!
Daddy Flew Them Literally All Over The Lake!

Our Little Pyramid Of Craziness!

This month was an especially a difficult one in our world of Cancer.  One of our friends from St. Jude, with our same tumor, died after battling Ependymoma for several years.  We had to tell each of the kids that news after school.  And they were very upset and we had to talk about it for a while.  One of our teacher's husband, who also had Ependymoma and was diagnosed the same time Ingram was diagnosed, died from Ependymoma.  We had to tell our kids.  A grandchild of one of the girls teachers was diagnosed with a tumor and because a patient of St. Jude.  We told the kids that too after school.  Then a student at our school was diagnosed with a tumor.  A brain tumor.  Just like us with surgery at Lebonheur then becoming a patient at St. Jude.  And we had to tell our kids.  All of this was within a 10 day period at towards the end of the month.  Cancer is not fun.  It does not feel rare to us when we see it on a daily basis.  Cancer sucks and this is the only time we use that "S" word.  Childhood Cancer really really sucks.

And we need your help to spread the word about childhood cancer.